Amgen Inc., of Thousand Oaks, Calif., and Boston Children's Hospital entered a neuroscience research collaboration to identify pain targets based on human genetic analyses.

Xenon Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Burnaby, British Columbia, said it started a phase I trial of epilepsy candidate XEN-1101, an orally administered Kv7 potassium channel opener that has the potential to treat both adult as well as rare pediatric genetic forms of epilepsy.

Privately held Hemoshear Therapeutics LLC signaled its intention to compete both with small peers and big biopharma in the race to develop therapies for liver diseases, especially nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), by luring Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. to a funded three-year discovery and development pact.

Brainstorm Cell Therapeutics Inc., of Hackensack, N.J., said the first patients were enrolled in the phase III trial of stem cell therapy Nurown in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Intellipharmaceutics International Inc., of Toronto, closed its recent registered direct offering for gross proceeds of about $4 million. The company also issued to the investors unregistered warrants to purchase about 1.8 million common shares at an exercise price of $1.25 per share.

Just weeks after the close of a flush third quarter for biotech fundraising, three more drug developers – Apellis Pharmaceuticals Inc., Inflarx NV and Genprex Inc. – are making the leap into the public market with IPOs, all on Nasdaq.

Thanks to a managed access agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of New York, the U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) announced that immunotherapy drug Opdivo (nivolumab) will be available within the Cancer Drugs Fund (CDF) for patients with head and neck cancer who have not responded to chemotherapy within six months and whose cancer has metastasized.

Whether and to what extent the risk of diabetic retinopathy will figure into deliberations of Wednesday’s FDA panel on Novo Nordisk A/S’ semaglutide stood as one of the main questions as investors scanned briefing documents made public Monday.

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells crossed the finish line as a cancer therapy, when the FDA approved Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel, formerly CTL-019, Novartis AG), in August.

SHANGHAI – On June 1 of this year, China’s new Cybersecurity Law came into effect, tightening the government’s grip on the transfer and security of data collected in China. Now that the law is in place, industry regulators are expected to hammer out specific rules that will come out in 2018.